Organizing Custom Fields

I have an issue that I wanted to add here to see if anyone else has the same experience. My organization has created many custom fields that are associated with different folders. We tag projects with these different folders based on the projects attributes, which causes the custom fields to become available for that particular project. There doesnt seem to be any way to organize the order of the custom fields or to group them in the list view. It would be great if we had the ability to add section headers or line separators in the custom field area in list view. Am I the only one who has a need for this?

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Comments

Scott Rogers

I couldn't agree more.

Meshelle Loos

Sam, Yes experiencing the same. Thanks for posting.

Sam Pruyn

Can we at least get documentation as to how they are organized now? There doesn't seem to be any pattern to the order which they appear

Meshelle Loos

Yes, it is a mess. I was told at one point that they are listed in the order that they are created.

Stephanie Westbrook

@Sam @Meshelle I can give you a little more detail into the order that they're currently sorted in (though this is something that we're bringing up with the team). How it works: fields are displayed based on Folder IDs. Custom Fields of the Folder with the higher ID are displayed first.

Fields are always displayed in order based on the Folder that they're in, but you can rearrange the order that fields in the same Folder appear in. To do this: 1) Switch to the Table View 2) Drag and drop columns into the appropriate order. Again, I know this isn't intuitive and it's definitely feedback we're passing along but wanted to share the current logic with you.

Sam Pruyn

Thank you Stephanie. That is definitely helpful. Can you please find out what happens if a custom field is used on more than 1 folder table? Does the order get based on the higher of the 2 folder IDs? The current logic is difficult to work with. I hope some order control and ability to add line breaks arrive in the current sprint soon! : )

Sam Pruyn

Stephanie, following up on my last comment, I just check with my developer and he showed me the folder IDs are alphanumeric, not numeric. So are you saying the custom columns are ordered by the folder IDs sorted alphanumerically?

Meshelle Loos

Yes, thank you Stephanie. Understanding the logic is helpful. However further customization by either grouping or line breaks will make it more clear to users who may not know (or want to know ) the logic.

Sam Pruyn

Please disregard my last comment Stephanie. You are talking about the folder IDs visible in the table view, I was referring to the API IDs.

Deidra Stevens

I have a similar request, though it may belong in a different or new request.

We also have a very large number of custom fields. Whenever we want to add one of those custom fields to a project/folder in the table view the list of fields is very large and messy, unorganized. Right now it is only split into custom fields you've created vs custom fields that other people in your account have created.

Is there a way we could group those fields into different categories? For us it would be best to base them on project types, i.e. based on the different implemenatation processes we use. Perhaps headers under which we could place the corresponding custom fields would work?

As always, thank you for always taking the time to help us out!

Deidra Stevens

SICOM Systems, Inc.

Deidra Stevens

Oh and as a clarifier Sam's original request would be really helpful as well, if I understand it correctly: a way to organize which order the fields are listed in the filter's options box. (Sorry, I'm not sure of the name for that box but it's the one that appears in the top left corner when you click on the gear symbol).

Thanks again!

Permanently deleted user

So sorry for the delay getting back here guys!

@Deidra, a very good point here about organizing Custom Fields, especially if you're using lots of them!

Stuart suggested this in his post, Custom Field Manager. It would be great if you could up-vote his post and add to the conversation there so it's all in the one place for the Product Team to review.

@Sam - Speaking to our developers the Logic of sorting for Custom Fields is based on a few different things: The ID of Folders/Subfolders when the task was added. When, and in which order, the Custom Field was added to Folders/Subfolders. And whether the Custom Field was changed in Folders/Subfolders affects the sorting.

@All, thank you for the feedback here around the visibility and organization of Custom Fields, it's something we've made out Product Team aware of and if there's an update I'll drop back here with more info

Nancy Lawrence

We are in the same situation as Sam. Would like to have a way to organize and display custom fields. Also would like to see if there's a way to avoid cutting off entries when they are displayed in custom fields. Thanks.

Dean McGrath

I have organized a folder and subfolder structure to show a particular order of custom fields. In tables view everything is fine. When we open projects within these folders and want to edit the custom fields at the project level the custom fields are all out of order.... How can we make sure the the order we set for the parent folder is inherited by ALL child folders AND Projects?

Karen L.

I have read and re-read Stephanie's explanation of the logic and still do not find Wrike behaving in the way described. The custom field manager lists the fields alphabetically. But, the List view literally has no rhyme or reason. Here is the order:

Project # Source 1 Source 2

Source 3 Source 4 Consultant

Contractor CIP# Inspector

Design Budget Const. Budget Bid

I only created the last 3 three. These fields definitely do not show up first, they are actually last and they are not in alphabetic order, they are in the order they were created. The custom fields that others created do not show up alphabetically either. I presume they are in the order they were created too but I'm not sure.

For your development purposes, the order I would want is this:

Project# CIP# Consultant

Design Budget Const. Budget Bid

Source 1 Source 2 Source 3 Source 4

Contractor Inspector

We REALLY NEED flexibility in being able to have these fields show how we need them too. Please fix!!

David Playford

Stephanie, you are a lifesaver, thank you for that suggestion

Evie Reinke

Are there any updates to this request? I need table fields in a specific order when in the List View. This was working up until about the first of August. Now my fields, even though they are in the correct order in the Table View, are incorrect in the List view. I've tried adding and removing them from the table and nothing seems to work. Do you have any suggestions?

Nancy Lawrence

Totally agree with Evie. I used to be able to put them in order in the table view and they would appear in that order in the list view... up until a few months ago. And just last week they rearranged again in the list view for no apparent reason. Any update on this? Thanks.

Evie Reinke

Nancy, I figured out that they are now put in alphabetical order. I had to add 01_, 02_, etc. in front of every table field so they appear in the order that I want them. Wrike - this should be a temporary fix. We NEED the ability to put these fields in a specific order. Thank you.

Nancy Lawrence

Thanks Evie -- I'll give that a shot with the number prefixes. Totally agree that we should be able to put these in the order we need and easily rearrange as necessary.

Permanently deleted user

Hi @Evie Reinke and @Nancy Lawrence, thank you for sharing this feedback. The Product team currently have no plans to change the sorting order of custom fields. If there are any updates here, I'll be sure to let you know.

Evie Reinke

Thank you for the notification, Hugh. In my opinion, this SHOULD be in the plans to change. Forcing a sort order that will not work for everyone is inefficient on the users' end. As new fields are added by users who do not know to add a number in front if them, Wrike Admins will be charged with updating older field names so new ones fit into the sorting order. Wrike is all about efficiency, this practice is not.

Karen L.

Hugh,

I'm with Evie. My original post for this request was made over 6 months ago. I am begging you to pick this up as a priority. It will help our organization provide information back to Design Consultants in a logical manner on the schedule that has been set up for their project.

Permanently deleted user

Hey everyone, a quick update here -

The Product team is currently researching this suggestion, so they've provided this post with the status of "Backburner". I'll be sure to keep you posted on any new information about this idea. Thank you for sharing your feedback and your use cases, they help our Product team in their conversations about potential future updates.

If you need anything else, feel free to reach out at any time.

mdr

Robert Armič

Just basic sorting is not enough, custom attributes should also be first class citizens in task edit view among system attributes, for example we have important attributes we want visible at the top of task and not only via dropdown (tags can not solve all cases). Please suport pinning of attributes so that they are always visible in task.

Permanently deleted user

Hi @Robert Armič,

Thank you for sharing this feedback, I've shared it with the Product team. Once I have any new information about this suggestion, I'll be sure to keep you posted.

Evie Reinke

Hi Hugh. Why is this topic listed as Backburner? This seems like a pretty important feature of Wrike to ignore new requests. I appreciate your time!

Permanently deleted user

Hi @Evie Reinke,

You can rest assured that all of the feedback in this thread has been shared with the Product team and that they are actively referencing it in their conversations about possible future updates for the product. If you're interested in reading more about how the Product Feedback process works, I would recommend checking out this Community article.

In relation to this status, the Product team is looking into this suggestion, but there are currently no plans to add this to the short-term roadmap. This status is subject to change, however, and I'll be sure to let you know if there are any updates here. If you need anything else in the meantime, feel free to reach out to me at any time.

Jenny Tu

Please consider the custom organization of custom fields as an enhancement to be put on the roadmap sooner rather than later. It definitely make the tool more user friendly to organize the fields in a way that makes sense to the end users. And be able to select which custom fields show up in which file folder, project or task.

Elaine McDonagh

Hey @Jenny Tu, thanks for adding your feedback here, it's been passed on to the Product team.

We don't have any updates to share here at the moment, but if this changes we'll be sure to let you know 👍